NEPA's new legislators review first 6 months

HARRISBURG - Six months on the job, the three freshman House members representing Lackawanna County shared a milestone last weekend casting "no" votes on the big state budget and welfare bills before them.

Reps. Marty Flynn, D-113, Scranton; Kevin Haggerty, D-112, Dunmore; and Frank Farina, D-115, Jessup, also shared something else that weekend: the experience of being in the heavily outnumbered minority House Democratic caucus in a Republican-controlled statehouse.

Democratic lawmakers helped stop Gov. Tom Corbett from enacting laws to privatize the state liquor stores, reduce public pensions and approve a transportation funding bill they consider inadequate to meet the needs, said Mr. Haggerty.

"We stopped a lot of things from happening," he added.

"The caucus held together," agreed Mr. Farina.

Mr. Farina said he regrets an agreement on boosting transportation funding couldn't be reached.

Mr. Flynn was critical of what he described as the underfunding of local school districts in the state budget and consequent loss of educational opportunities for students. Partisan politics is to blame for excluding the Scranton School District from receiving special aid under a subsidy supplement for distressed school districts, he said.

"I don't think your education opportunities should depend upon where your ZIP code (is)," added Mr. Flynn. "We are going to reap what we sow and see an overall cost to the state in corrections."

With Mr. Flynn and Mr. Haggerty representing sections of Scranton, the implications of the city's status as the only Second Class A city in Pennsylvania are hitting home. Mr. Flynn blamed GOP senators for using Scranton's unique classification to keep it out of a limited group of third-class cities eligible to compete for a spot in a new urban development program.

Sen. John Blake, D-22, Archbald, tried unsuccessfully to make Scranton eligible for City Revitalization and Improvement Zones, but his amendment was defeated in committee along party lines.

Mr. Haggerty suggested it's time for Scranton to reconsider its solo classification.

"We have to find a way to get out of distressed status in Scranton," he said. "We are singled out as the only 2A. We are in our own ship."

The three lawmakers are involved in what is often a long and frustrating process of introducing and moving bills toward passage.

Mr. Farina is awaiting a House floor vote this fall on his bill aimed at preventing suicides among school-age youth. The Education Committee approved the bill requiring teacher training on this subject by a unanimous vote last month. Mr. Farina said it's important that teachers be able to recognize warning signs of potential suicidal behavior such as changes in moods and behavior.

"I've got great bipartisan support (for the bill)," he added.

The measure would require all 6th- through 12th-grade teachers to receive four hours of state-approved suicide awareness and prevention training every five years. The training would help teachers meet continuing training requirements.

School safety has been a major issue for Mr. Haggerty. He supports newly passed legislation to expand the scope of state school safety grants to help pay for school resource officers and emergency training and violence prevention programs.

But Mr. Haggerty said the $8.5 million in the new state budget to implement the bill is inadequate, especially for his goal of putting resource officers in all elementary schools.

He won House passage by unanimous votes recently for two bills to allow Scranton city employees who are veterans to immediately start buying military service credits to apply to their retirement benefits.

Another bill sponsored by Mr. Haggerty seeks to protect senior citizens from being exploited. The measure would give a local area agency on aging the authority to investigate cases in which there is reason to believe that an individual with power of attorney is exploiting a senior citizen.

Mr. Flynn is introducing a bill to give consumers privacy protection when they use a new form of information technology - mobile applications known as apps.

His bill would require that apps providers notify users of the types of information that can be accessed or collected by the application prior to its download. Violators would be subject to a $25 fine for each failure to notify under the bill. Consumers need this protection because an app can collect personal information such as address book entries and track a user's location, said Mr. Flynn.

Contact the writer: rswift@timesshamrock.com

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